The Giants, Patton's family and the rest of the AFL community has quickly reached out to the young key forward, who tore the ACL in his right knee for the second time in Sunday's victory over Melbourne at the MCG.
The 21-year-old was also limited to just seven games in his rookie year back in 2012 following patella tendinopathy surgery in Sweden.
He will now undergo a traditional knee construction in the coming days and then set about once again trying to get back into AFL shape.
"It's pretty shattering to be honest," said GWS defender and Patton's housemate Heath Shaw on Monday.
"For a guy to come back from a previous knee and play some really, really good football … the way it all panned out, there were a few murmurs during the game about it and no one knew exactly.
"I've only known Jonny for nine months and lived with him for six of them, but learning about his past history and the injuries, it was shattering for him to get that news last night.
"He was pretty upset … and after the game when we got told, all the boys were just in silence because it's such a tough thing."
Shaw spoke to Patton briefly on Sunday night and admits his young mate is going through some "dark times", but he has already been boosted by the support he has received.
Brisbane Lion Claye Beams, a number of players from Collingwood and Adelaide, plus Heath's brother Rhyce have already reached out to Patton to offer their support.
Heath Shaw said it had been a difficult phone call with the young spearhead.
"That's probably the toughest thing, you don't know what to say," he said.
"You say 'Keep your chin up', but it's such a hard situation for him to be in and it's sort of out of his control now.
"He just has to do everything right going forward."
The hits keep coming for the Giants, who are facing an ever-increasing injury list at the tail end of their third AFL season.
Compounding the club's injury troubles, Callan Ward (calf) is likely finished for the year, while fellow co-captain Phil Davis is struggling with both a bout of concussion and his own calf issue.
It all added up to make the club's first victory in Melbourne that much sweeter for a proud GWS coach Leon Cameron.
"It was obviously quite unique," Cameron said.
"When Phil went down, for the first second I was actually quite angry with him because of the way he approached the contest.
"But then I realised that's just him.
"When he went off, and they confirmed he was out with concussion, I thought 'Here we go'.
"Second quarter we had Jon's injury, which took me a couple of seconds to compute, then Cal Ward with his calf topped it right off at half-time.
"But the pleasing thing with all that is our young lads thought their way through it when a lot of them probably didn't even know what was going on."
The injuries, coupled with Tom Scully's season-ending knee injury, have raised the prospect of fellow vice-captain Shaw leading the Giants out against his former Collingwood teammates this weekend.
Once guilty of some on and off-field indiscretions, Shaw says he never thought he would captain an AFL club, let alone against the Magpies.
But he is at least taking plenty of satisfaction from Sunday's victory.
"It was really exciting and really pleasing," he said.
"Obviously I've played in some big games, big finals and all that, and round one this year beating Sydney was one of the best wins I've been involved in.
"This one here, just the way things panned out and for such a young group to show the grit and determination they did … we had guys I hadn't heard much from during the year getting the boys together and having a word.
"It was great to see that leadership and confidence growing in this group."
Twitter: @AFL_JD
